The Best Places to Work + Best to Work For….

I owe a listener named Seth an answer, and I’m behind, so I’m sorry, Seth. He wrote: what advice would you give someone like me? I’m a project manager, not really a decision maker in the company yet, trying to implement lean and takt, but I don’t have a way to change things. I’ll answer that, and then talk about best places to work.

Short answer: If you lack authority, work in your own sphere and show it working. As an owner’s rep, ask contractors to show you a macro-level plan, because if you can’t see the plan in five minutes, there isn’t one. And best-places-to-work posts are great, but the true measure is whether your trade partners, foremen, and workers would vote for you too.

How Do You Change Things Without Authority?

Follow this concept: people must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown proposed as things forgot. If you really understand the principles of lean and takt on your own and find a way to get the team to buy in, or to not notice and align them with current systems, you can get some really cool things done. If you’re a project engineer, assistant project manager, field engineer, assistant superintendent, or superintendent, you can implement these things in your own areas.

Most of the time, it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission. If you go to your superintendent and say, I want to start running huddles, you’re probably going to get a bad response. It’s better to just start running huddles and showcase how it’s done. From a human social standpoint, it’s a lot harder for people to stop you from doing something right that’s already working than to stop you from starting it.

What Can an Owner’s Rep Do if the GC Uses CPM?

Seth went on: as a construction manager for a school district or developer, it’s usually up to the GC to create the schedule, and most of that is considered means and methods, so he doesn’t have the authority to tell them to change from CPM. I really like this one.

This isn’t a dig at my other takt friends out there, just the current reality: Lean Takt and I are probably the only ones really teaching solid macro-level takt plans. Most people go directly into the normal level and optimization. Macro-level takt plans in pre-construction and for owners are huge. You could take your contractor’s CPM schedule, pull some sequences, do a quick-and-dirty version of the phases, network them together, and find the problems you won’t find in a CPM schedule. See Construction Macro Level Takt Plan.

Then say: continue with your CPM and your methods. But unless you can show me, as the owner’s rep, exactly what’s going on in this project, I’d like you to help me use this visual and show me. To all my CPM friends who give me a hard time: show me. If it works so well, show me the plan.

Why Can’t You See the Plan in a CPM Schedule?

As a superintendent, I’ve made dozens of schedules in P6. I’m good at it. Some people think I make fun of CPM because I don’t know it. No. I can probably click the buttons faster than you. I can do the float trends and Monte Carlo analyses. But once I get past around eight printed PDF pages, I don’t know what I’ve done to logic-tie things together. I don’t know if there are logic ties that shouldn’t be there or missing ones that should. I’m guessing at best.

Here’s the rule of thumb, from a lean leader at DPR who was on the management committee. I think he said within 50 seconds, but I’ll use five minutes to be safe: if you can’t see the plan in five minutes, you don’t have a plan. If someone says it’s in the CPM schedule and a 4D rendering, and they’d have to walk you through a narrative for four or five days before you understand it, you don’t have a plan.

I’ve never seen a CPM schedule that, once transferred to a macro-level format and networked properly, actually created a whole plan. They’re always stacked, with duplicate sequences and activities and problems. So as an owner’s rep, get it on a single sheet. Even have them create hammock activities or summaries in P6 over their work breakdown structure, then take each bar and ask, how does this tie, and how does this flow? You’ll usually see the problems. Read Owner’s Representatives.

Do Best Places to Work Awards Matter?

Some of y’all are going to get mad at me. I see a lot on LinkedIn: we’re the number one best place to work, the seventh best place to work, in the top 50. I love it. I think it’s fantastic. Keep posting it. The posts are cool.

What I want to say is that it doesn’t matter unless your trades are having a good time as well. It doesn’t matter if your workers and foremen on your project aren’t having a good time too. I’d also like to see: and I was voted top general contractor by my trades. I want to hear that you’re doing both.

Who Votes for the Hard Jobs?

Think about people who do hard things. Would a coal miner vote their coal mining job a top 10 best place to work? Would people in the U.S. military, or the National Guard, or any military? They’re serving a purpose. The linemen and women, the bricklayers, the people doing hard, dirty jobs: I don’t know that all of them would vote their job into the top 10 or top 50.

Is it fun to work at Google? Yeah. At Netflix? Probably, unless you get fired. At a really nice, progressive construction company with cool open offices? Yes, and I love it. All I’m saying is don’t post it unless you can also say your trade partners are raving fans. I’d hate for there to be companies buying foosball tables, treats, vacations, yoga classes, and massages for teams who are making money off the backs of people being disrespected in the field.